magnate had sought her hand in marriage, while
many wondered at her evident determination to remain single.

But as the years passed away her father thought he saw a change in her.
She no longer grew impatient when he spoke to her of marriage, and he
hoped with a great hope that his old age might be cheered by the shouts
of children's voices, and by the thought that his only child had buried
a dead past.

CHAPTER XIX

THE MAN WITH THE FEZ

Olive Castlemaine sat on the lawn of her Devonshire home, looking away
across the valley towards the moorlands which lay beyond. By her side
stood a young fellow of from thirty to thirty-five years of age.

"You don't say you are sorry for me, Miss Castlemaine," he said.

"You are not on my side, you see," she replied, with a smile.

"Would that make a difference? Would you have congratulated me if I were
on your side, and won the seat?"

"And if you had lost it--if you had made a good fight."

"You believe in fighting?"

"To the very end."

"Still, I can't turn my coat--even for you," he said apologetically.

"I would not like you to."

"And, after all, the battle's not lost, because of one defeat."

"You are going to stand again?"

"Yes, I am going to stand again. We must have a General Election in a
year or two; meanwhile I shall keep on pegging away. The majority was
not insurmountable. The Government is bound to make a fool of itself,
the General Election will come, and I shall win the seat."

"You seem very certain."

"The man who keeps pegging away, and never gives up, has always reason
to be certain. And I never give up."

Olive was silent.

"Don't you believe in that attitude?" he asked.

"Yes--in a way. Still, I should make sure I was not striving after an
impossibility."

"Everything that has ever been done worth the doing,--I mean every
really great thing--has been done by attempting the impossible."

Olive turned towards him with a glance that did not lack admiration. He
was a fine-looking young fellow; tall, well formed, and well favoured.
He belonged to that class which maintains the best traditions of the old
county families. He was the owner of an estate which lay contiguous to
that of John Castlemaine, and he was a healthy-minded, clear-brained
young Englishman. In many things the two were opposed. His sympathies
were, in the main, with the classes; hers with the people; he had but
little belief in the democracy, she had. He belie